The Ultimate Guide to High Availability with MariaDB
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Security of Mariadb root account

Installed Mariadb on a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian Stretch OS.

Ran the mysql_secure_installation script to secure database, setting a root password, and 'Yes' to remainder of questions. At this stage, I assumed that the Mariadb root account was secured with the password, however...

Using $ sudo mysql and without entering any password whatsoever, I get access to perform actions normally associated with the root account.

How can that be?? and what was the purpose in adding a password, if root access can be so readily gained.

Answer Answered by Brian Evans in this comment.

This is a Debian decision to:

  1. Not require a password with sudo
  2. Utilize the unix_socket plugin by default

The latter is set in the Debian install scripts. You can override this by removing the plugin for 'root'@'localhost' as long as you understand that Debian scripts may be looking for their default.

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